Rolling NFL Thread

Are you worried about Gase at all? Does seem to pop off at his own team quite frequently. Maybe could have got a bit more for Ajayi if Gase hadn’t publicly lain into him?

As Matthew Berry said: “Oh we’ll show you Jay Ajayi! Gonna trade you to a Super Bowl contender! That’ll teach everyone a lesson. Better shape up!”

Kelvin Benjamin to the Bills! Half expecting to see Harry Redknapp gurning out of his car window on nfl.com at this rate.

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Soooooo the browns agreed a deal with the bengals for AJ McCarron

the (maybe only coaching?) staff were all celebrating, the personnel dept didn’t put the call in until after the deadline (no fax machines here as far as I can tell), NFL says “tough cheese, no deal” (that’s an actual quote)

the browns moan and try to push it through, the NFL say “NO DEAL, LOSERS”

turns out only the coaching staff wanted McCarron because the front office staff baulked at the 2nd and 3rd round picks agreed upon (fair enough tbh)

looks like Haslam is listening to the coaching staff rather than the front office. Remember when everyone was saying how well the Browns were rebuilding? I love how they agree to a bad deal and manage to get out of it because they’re SO incompetent they can’t do a basic process before celebrating it.

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Draft picks are overvalued by a lot of Front Offices in the NFL. Even more so by fans.

I read that the highest they were offered last off season was a 2nd Rd pick (as part of a package). Obviously the Pats had evaluated that entire draft class at that point, and saw no players at that spot they felt it worth taking.

A player of known quality on the bench, especially at QB, and especially consider Brady’s age, is far more valuable than Deshone Kizer or whoever they could’ve grabbed.

The way NE operates goes against a lot of received wisdom in the NFL. But it works.

The way I always see it is that number of picks is much more important than where those picks are. Like outside of maybe 5 players per draft there are no sure bets, and no one is actually that good at working out value pre draft in the 2nd-5th rounds. So instead of trading to move up, get as many players as you can and play the odds

You can’t keep a good QB down. Or a lot of the average ones, and even some absolutely terrible ones.

“Trevor, we’re going to go with Brock this week.” Oof.

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I think my issue with it is less Garoppolo, but more that it followed the Brissett move, which looks pretty poor now - I don’t think Dorsett has 100 yards on the season yet? Both trades together seem poorly planned, even if they get Hoyer in as backup.

There’s been all sorts rumoured about what NE were offered for JG before the draft, but if you compare it to other trades (eg Brown), they didn’t seem to get huge value out of him. In a way, it’s like the best case scenario for them - all QBs are totally healthy - so it’s been an expensive insurance policy for 4 years. I wonder what would have happened if they’d kept him on this year, and then dangled him before the draft with the option of franchise tagging him. That way they get the ‘insurance’ for the business part of the season, and still get some return on him (maybe not a high second, possibly the other 2nd rounder the 49ers have).

Disagree about draft picks - it’s one of the best ways to get elite level talent into your team. It is a lottery, but especially with the collective bargaining agreement, it’s lopsided in the favour of the teams.

Not sure how great the pats/Belichik is at the front office stuff, I wonder how much gets mitigated by how brilliant a coach he is.

I think it’s too early to judge the Dorsett move, he came in behind several good and entrenched receivers - Hogan, Amendola, Edelman (obvs hurt now, but still), Gronk, a load of pass catching RBs and with Cooks coming in too, so he had a job to get up the pecking order. Having said all that, I don’t really see how it will work out for him for precisely those reasons.

Regarding JG, no-one actually knows what was offered, so we can’t tell if this is better or worse. I always think that people value the picks much higher than the player, Ajayi being a perfect example. A fourth rounder?

All backup QBs are an insurance policy, and JG was most certainly not an expensive one by QB standards. His salary is $750k this year. The Falcons are paying Matt Schaub nearly $5m as backup, and the Bears are paying Mark Sanchez more than twice as much as JG this year to be THIRD choice. I do agree that it seems strange to trade him now though, seems like there’s every reason to keep him to the end of the year.

I definitely agree that the Pats front office moves are over-rated. They’ve done a bit better recently, but for a long time the drafting and trading were not that great. The one thing they did do with consistency was ship out proven players just before they went of a cliff, for a decent return.

I agree with the whole Dorsett paragraph - to me, either you bring him in to have an impact this season, or you keep Brissett (so you can deal JG). And yeah, no-one knows what was actually offered, although we do know McCarron was worth a 2 and a 3 (although that was Hue Jackson offering that).

Agree with the cheap cost of the backup QB (another reason why draft picks are so valuable), but I think my issue with it is that a backup QB is a valuable commodity for a championship contender, and NE have left themselves short (or with Hoyer) at the critical part of the year. Sanchez is a funny one, I think he was brought in off the highly regarded job he did with Dak Prescott as a backup/pseudo mentor. I think if I was in the GM spot and needed a QB, I’d ‘over-spend’ to solve it, a la Philly last year, or Chicago this.

Deshaun Watson’s rookie season done apparently. Fucking gutted - he’s genuinely been as fun to watch as Brady was in the 18-1 season (n.b. This isn’t the same as me saying he’s been as good).

Poor Houston - still celebrating the World Series and then this less than 24 hours later.

Wonder which no mark QB will “fit their system” better than Kaepernick. My guess is Luke McCown, he’s been quiet for a while.

Interesting you should mention that…

In the interests of fairness I should add that this was reported before the Deshaun Watson news broke.

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Ah, no way! Why must all the most fun players get hurt? Rodgers, Beckham, Watt and now Watson. Sucks for us, really sucks for him.

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Serious answer to your question:

“Former Bears signal-caller Connor Shaw and ex-Colts QB Josh Johnson could be viable options for the Texans, Rapoport said.”

If Wikipedia is to be believed Johnson’s signed with the Colts again. Quite remarkably this is Josh Johnson’s 10th year in the league, during which he’s only started 5 (five) games.

He’s hardly been expensive, I be he’s made less than £5m TOTAL in the time he’s been at the Patriots. It would’ve cost the Patriots what ~£20m to Franchise Tag him. Never going to happen. That’s probably more than Brady will make next season.

This was the last opportunity for the Patriots to get any value out of him and they managed to snag a pick that’s probably going to be 4-5 picks off the first rounder they gave up for Brandin Cooks.

it really isn’t that important at all. When was the last time a team won a Championship because of their backup QB? Probably the Patriots and Tom Brady 15 years ago?

If your QB goes down, you’re basically done.

Kaepernick started the season on the bench the year the 49ers made the Superbowl.

Also the Broncos rotated QBs when Manning was injured and Osweiler was still useful.